I am awkward.

I have anxiety about being awkward, so I’m here to talk about why we should embrace awkwardness.The truth is there is a stigma around awkwardness. We avoid it, we counteract it. It challenges what we see to be acceptable.

But it’s one of the most human conditions; awkwardness tells us that we are human.

It is our true self showing through when we don’t mean to—on the other side of awkwardness is connection.

As someone who has deep intimacy with the feeling of awkwardness, I was nominated to give a talk on why awkwardness was actually awesome at Ignite Boulder.

Each presenter has five minutes and exactly 20 slides that advance automatically—here goes:

Banks lives in Boulder, Colorado and spends his time being awkward, playing pranks on friends, and serving as VP of Partnerships at the Unreasonable Institute, an accelerator program for entrepreneurs addressing social and environmental problems in the world.

awkwardness is also a sure way to growth. when we expand perceptions of reality and go beyond taboos, our comfort zones and other socially sanctioned realities, our boundaries stretch further and bring us into a more open, tolerant, stronger and more intelligent, sensitive nature. think of all the awkward yoga poses! if it doesnt feel awkward, it might not be pushing us to grow and expand…